Schools Senior: Belfast Royal Academy 10 Down High School 18

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by

John McMurtry

Down High came out on top in this thoroughly entertaining game on Saturday morning at Roughfort between two well matched sides.

It looked, in the opening exchanges that this game would be a comfortable win for the home side as BRA’s crashed over after four minutes.

Callum Savage opens the scoring for BRA

However, the visitors took the lead at the start of the second quarter with finding the line for to convert to give Down High a 5 – 7 lead.

The visitors got on top for the remainder of the half and a late penalty from Graham saw BRA chasing a five point deficit with the score at 5 – 10 as the teams changes ends.

Down High took their chances through the boot of Ross Graham

A rousing start to the second half was rebuffed by the home team and Down were restricted to a second penalty from Graham to move the score along to 5 – 13.

A brief flare up in this charged encounter seemed to give Down the edge but BRA were next to score with Josh Manson producing an impressive finish out wide to take the score to 10 – 13 as the game went into the final quarter.

Ross Manson finishes out wide for BRA

Down’s composure in the heat of battle saw them over the line with ‘s try giving the visitors an 8 point lead as well as an impressive return on visits to the red zone.

Reuben Smith gets the decisive try.

Academy probably had enough chances to win this one but opted not to take their kicks giving Down High a free hand to close out the game for a memorable win.

An entertaining game from both teams – thoroughly enjoyed it.

Down High scorers Rodrey Phillips, Reuben Smith’ and Ross Graham.

Massive Gallery Below

2 responses to “Schools Senior: Belfast Royal Academy 10 Down High School 18”

  1. John Coyle

    Thanks for all your match reports & photos.

    I appreciate if you could amend the report to show that it was Josh Manson that had came on as a Sub to score the 2nd BRA try.

    Reply
    1. John McMurtry

      Should be fixed now.

      Reply

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